When LSU called Billy Cannon the day after his 80th birthday this past August to tell him the school was planning a statue in his honor, Cannon amazingly was taken aback.
“It’s not something you expect,” he said then.
You can admire Cannon’s humility. But if anyone deserved a statue for their LSU athletic exploits, it was William Abb Cannon, who died Sunday at age 80.
Nationally, LSU’s best known sports figures are probably “Pistol” Pete Maravich and Shaquille O’Neal. But on the home front, Cannon is the legend of legends.
Nearly 60 years after he stepped off the field at old Tulane Stadium after his final college game in the 1960 Sugar Bowl, Cannon remains the standard by which all LSU football players are judged.